Devotions

“Nevertheless God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus” (2 Corinthians 7:6).

Paul took a ministry trip to Troas where he was to be joined by his spiritual son Titus. He longed to see his godly son in Christ and knew his spirits would be lifted by his presence. Yet after Paul arrived in Troas, Titus didn’t show up.

Doors of ministry opened for Paul in Troas, but the apostle’s heart had grown heavy as he waited for the arrival of Titus. Paul wrote of the experience, “When I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me by the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus my brother … [so] I departed for Macedonia” (2 Corinthians 2:12-13).

Paul did something he had never done in his life, something that was contrary to everything he preached; he walked away and wandered restlessly to Macedonia. What a picture of a wounded soldier of the cross. The great apostle was beaten down in mind, body and spirit. Why? What had brought Paul to such a point? The apostle himself explains it. “I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother.” He was alone, and he desperately needed fellowship.

Satan always comes to attack us when we are weary from battle. That is when we are most vulnerable to his lies, and the enemy might have buffeted Paul with two vicious ones: “Titus hasn’t come because he has rejected you” or “Titus isn’t here because you are no longer effective, Paul. Your ministry is simply not bearing fruit.”

If you have walked in intimacy with the Lord, you know very well what Paul was facing. Satan is the father of lies, and right now he may be sending you similar lies. “Everyone has rejected you. You have no place in God’s kingdom work. You’re just taking up space.”

Titus made it to Macedonia, and he arrived with a refreshing spirit. Paul’s heart was uplifted as the two men fellowshipped, and he wrote, “I am filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all [my] tribulation” (2 Corinthians 7:4).

God uses people to refresh people! Today, look for an opportunity to be a Titus to someone who is downcast in spirit. Perhaps a simple phone call will bring consolation and refreshing to a brother or sister in Christ and result in healing of spirit.

“With my whole heart I have sought You … Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You … I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways” (Psalm 119:10-11, 15).

As a ministry leader, I occasionally ask myself and my co-laborers, “Why are we here? Why do we do what we do? What is our purpose?” The short answer on the surface is that we conduct a worldwide ministry to build up the body of Christ, reach the lost and minister loving care to the needy. The real answer to the core question of why we are here is the same for both the youngest disciples of Christ and the most experienced, wise ministry leader. The answer is we’re here to minister to Jesus.

It is impossible to minister to our Savior and Lord unless we begin in his presence. No Christian will ever be misdirected, misguided or get off base if he or she starts out in Christ’s presence and never leaves it.

King David is an example of the importance of this practice. He faced enemy armies that required quick, purposeful thinking in the midst of life-or-death situations. And he had to rule a divided kingdom between Israel and Judah. So how did David accomplish his purposes to bring glory to God and end up as Israel’s most renowned king?

David moved in victory because his heart was to minister to the Lord in every situation. The Bible makes this clear in his actions and in all the worshipful, yearning psalms he wrote. Ministering to the Lord was always at the forefront as David pursued the words God set before him.   

Another example is Samuel. He was known as a great prophet in Israel but not because of his strategic relationships to kings and leaders. Scripture makes it clear that Samuel had a heart to minister to the Lord from a very young age. Even as a boy, Samuel was continually in the temple seeking God’s presence, and that relationship above all gave Samuel influence with people from the lowest rung of life to the highest offices in the land.

David and Samuel show us that to achieve the works of God, we have to know his presence. The same holds true for every believer today. Following the Lord means being Jesus-focused, Jesus-centered and Jesus-empowered. The Bible calls Christ the Alpha and the Omega — the beginning and the end of all things — and that applies to our lives. He has to be everything to us!

There are many Hebrew and Greek words in the Scriptures that express the nuances, depth, and meaning of God’s commitment and “resolution” toward us, and of our vows and decisions before him. A definition of the concept of “resolution” in the Old and New Testaments is: “A divine decree; a human hope; a proclamation of true intention and firm will; a challenge to be answered; a heart and will commitment; a decision that will make the moment; a new era; the beginning or the end of a period or set of behavior; a public or personal declaration or proclamation reflecting true commitment and a profound desire.”

“Faith with a resolution” is the meeting of an honest human decision with divine power that provokes and changes us. It is the Holy Spirit’s intervention and transformation in our history. It is the hand of God holding ours. Listen to this promise Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and that God himself is writing to you:

“This is why we always pray for you that our God may fulfill by his power all of his plans of goodness and grace toward you by the working of your faith that by his power he would allow you and make you capable to fufill, giving life to your faith by his grace.”

It is of utmost importance that we realize that God alone, by his grace and Spirit, can make us capable of keeping any resolution. Paul reminds the Philippians of their only source of power: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). This is a spiritual principle, a kingdom law — that moment when God answers in response to the heart that completely recognizes its inadequacy and absolute inability to please Him by its own strength or volition. It is the death of self-will, self-resolve, self-dependency and self-confidence that brings us to resurrection power. It is the divine connection and moment when all of heaven’s potential, omnipotence and capacity comes in to make possible your human resolution.

It is only by his power that we can fulfill and accomplish the resolution that he writes in our hearts by his Spirit.  

^{Claude Houde is the lead pastor of Eglise Nouvelle Vie (New Life Church) in Montreal, Canada. Under his leadership New Life Church has grown from a handful of people to more than 3500 in a part of Canada with few successful Protestant churches.}

“Hezekiah … did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandment, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart. So he prospered” (2 Chronicles 31:20-21).

In so many words, Scripture is saying that Hezekiah was the greatest king Israel ever had. We are told that his heart was so set on the Lord that no king before or after him was like him. Then consider the very next verse: “After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered Judah; he encamped against the fortified cities thinking to win them over to himself” (32:1).

Note the opening phrase: “After these deeds of faithfulness …” This refers to all the good that Hezekiah had done: his walk of truth and holiness; his seeking of God; his cleaving to the Lord; his fight against sin and compromise; his deep prayer and trust; the national revival he led. In the wake of these blessed things, Scripture says, then the devil came in. Principalities and powers of darkness surrounded the righteous king and God’s people, waging an all-out war to bring them down and destroy their faith.

Yes, this all came about after the establishment of Hezekiah’s many ministries, which were stable, mature, well-grounded. Satan wasn’t wasting his powers on a weak, inexperienced, wavering child of God; he was aiming his most intense weapons at a spiritual giant. This godly man wasn’t living in sin or rebellion; he was one of God’s most faithful servants. And yet, virtually overnight, Hezekiah found himself in an impossible situation. And the Lord did not explain why this terrible siege had befallen him.

In Hezekiah, we see a clear illustration of the devil’s plan against every devoted servant of God. In our own times of trial and temptation, Satan comes to us bringing lies: “You’re a failure, otherwise you wouldn’t be going through this. There’s something wrong with you and God is displeased.” The Bible tells us that God supernaturally delivered Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 19:35). And ever since the cross of Christ, God’s people have had even better promises than Hezekiah had.

Remember, pray, even in silence, and refuse to fear Satan’s attacks. God himself will deal with your enemy, and he will work his plan to deliver you!

The healings Christ performed were instantaneous, visible to those who were present. “He said to the paralytic, ‘Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.’ And he arose and departed to his house” (Matthew 9:6-7). The crippled man with the gnarled body lying by the pool of Bethesda suddenly had an outward, physical change so that he could run and leap (see John 5:5-8). This was a miracle that had to astonish and move all who saw it. Another instantaneous miracle!

The feedings that Christ did were progressive. He offered up a simple prayer of blessing, then broke the bread and the dried fish, never giving a sign or a sound that a miracle was taking place. Yet, to feed that many people, there had to be thousands of breakings of that bread and those fish, all throughout the day. And every single piece of bread and fish was a part of the miracle.

This is just how Jesus performs many of his miracles in people’s lives today. We pray for instantaneous, visible wonders, but often our Lord is quietly at work, performing a miracle piece by piece, bit by bit. We may not be able to hear it or touch it, but he is at work, shaping our deliverance beyond what we can see.

You may be in the middle of a miracle right now and simply not be seeing it. You’re discouraged because you don’t see any evidence of God’s supernatural work on your behalf. David said, “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears” (Psalm 18:6).

Think of one difficulty you are facing right now, your greatest need, your most troubling problem. You’ve prayed about it for so long. Do you really believe the Lord can and will work it out in ways you can’t conceive? That kind of faith commands the heart to quit fretting or asking questions. It tells you to rest in the Father’s care, trusting him to do it all in his way and time.